


quiet night

by dirkin



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 14:57:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6859669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirkin/pseuds/dirkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>you think you'll sleep with a nightlight from now on, to chase away the shadows of your past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	quiet night

**Author's Note:**

> im so sorry  
> cheers to meg for beta-ing!  
> titles are hard also

It’s quiet.

 

It’s always quiet when you get “home” - wherever home is, you make sure it’s where people ain’t. This hideout is a old, dusty farmhouse that hasn’t seen use in half a century. The doors were welded shut, but rats had eaten into the panelling somewhere near the back, giving you an entrance. You’d enlarged the hole just enough to squeeze through, then hidden it from outside view with straw and broken bits of wood. The building even had an old sofa that had fallen from the crumbling hayloft and miraculously stayed intact. Musty as it was, it’d given you the best night’s sleep you’d had in ages. You had set it up near your “door”, concealing it with a particularly large section of old mesh and straw. You kept your rifle and few spare clothes safely hidden under it, and you haven’t been found in the few weeks you’ve been here.

 

Having unceremoniously crawled in, you dust the splinters from your jacket before re-covering your tracks. Your back twinges, and you wince. Age hasn’t made you forgetful, yet, but forcing yourself through cracks in abandoned buildings doesn’t exactly do well for your joints. Or muscles. Or pride. And although it’s summer the cloudless nights are cool, making it harder to relax at the end of a long day’s hunt. Or, in this case, a long day’s fruitless surveillance of an abandoned Watchpoint while you sat in a technically-stolen car doing absolutely nothing. Mississippi held promises of more information on former Blackwatch agents, and the moment you’d figured out where you needed to be you were there. Government hadn’t caught wind of you, yet, but you were sure whatever kind of ring these agents had set up were preparing for the inevitable, mysterious wrath of Soldier: 76. Good.

 

Actually, you decided, as you sat down on your couch, you don’t want to come across as too confident, or predictable, in your new image. Rumours were circulating about your past identity as Jack Morrison, ex-glorious, disgraced and officially dead commander. Despite your efforts to conceal and destroy evidence, you had underestimated the dedication of conspiracy theorists these days. It wasn’t them you were worried about, though, the government didn’t take them seriously. You just didn’t want your former allies to cotton on and try contacting you again. Not even out of bitterness, you assured yourself, forcibly cracking each knuckle on your hands. You just Didn’t. _Crack_. Want. _Crack_. To be. _Crack_. Disturbed. _Crack_.

 

Fingers successfully loosened, and mood soured by thoughts of intrusion by happy-go-lucky English girls and fatherly German men, you remove the frontal section of your visor with a soft hiss as the air tubes dislocate. Sleeping with it on was uncomfortable at best, and tomorrow required you work without it, anyway. The unwavering silence of these rural areas reminds you uncomfortably of home as a kid, and how you used to long for the peace during sleepless nights sharing a room with your fellow soldier. Soldiers. You unholster your pistol – a small, innocuous thing you took on your missions just in case – and tuck it under the cushions. You rest the visor on the floor, remove your jacket with a grunt of discomfort, and roll your shoulders; before plonking your head down firmly on the more pliable armrest and resting the jacket over your waist. It wasn’t the best blanket, especially when the sweltering days staking out had forced you to adopt a vest instead of a proper shirt, but your back needed it more than your arms, anyway. Another shuffle or two and you feel settled enough that you can begin sleeping, although it’s colder than you expected tonight, so you won’t be surprised if you wake up later with frozen biceps. That was a problem for future you, though, and not something you cared to dwell on.

 

The darkness was also more enveloping than before. Your past super-soldier enhancements gave you sharper natural vision than most people, but even then the barn seemed almost shrouded in shadow. An unfamiliar twinge of nervousness shot through you, though you immediately scolded yourself for being ridiculous, firmly shutting your eyes. Okay, so darkness wasn’t exactly pleasant, but it wasn’t going to _eat_ you. It wasn’t like you expected Death himself to walk out of the shadows and take you in the night.

 

You opened your eyes again, and Death was pointing a shotgun at your face.

 

Your speed at moving right as the shadowy figure pulls the trigger on his gun is the best luck you’ve had. The couch behind you explodes into semi-mouldy stuffing and fabric, your right ear is temporarily deafened, and you’re sure one of the pellets grazes your shoulder. You kick out at your assailant - but he’s no longer there.

 

You look at the cushion, eyes narrowing in confusion and mistrust. You can feel a trickle of blood running down your bare arm, your ear is tingling, and there is definitely a crater made from nine bullets, eight straight and one slightly askew, in your couch. _What?_ The room is less murky, but you can sense that Death isn’t going to leave without some closure - on your life, it seems. You remind yourself to be religious again sometime so you can personally thank God, before telling Him to go fuck Himself for sending Satan to personally kill you.

 

You reach down for your visor and curse when it’s missing. Of course it wouldn’t be that simple. Your pistol is still tucked in the couch cushion, hidden enough that it wasn’t noticed. The ear tingle has become a sore ring now, and adrenaline is the only thing keeping your mind off the stinging in your arm. Endurance or no, bullets still fucking hurt. You shuffle, cautious, towards where the assassin was standing, and peer around your mesh cover. You reach for the pistol, and as you curl your fingers around it, the room darkens noticeably again.

 

This time, you swear you _hear_ the coalescing of shadows and you twist to your right, firing two shots into the mass of black forming. One shoots straight through the semi-visible form, hitting the wall of the barn; the other is delayed just so that the shadows form enough for it to hit. There is a wet thud, and you think, _well, at least it’s human._

 

The assassin is looking down at where you’ve shot him in the chest, and you note the fact he has two shotguns, crossed over his torso like a corpse. The darkness hides most details, but he’s wearing a hooded cloak, thick armour and a pointed skull mask, further concealing any possible features. You want to laugh at how terribly stereotypical his getup is, but your thoughts stall when you notice that he hasn’t reacted to being shot bar mild curiosity.

 

You had heard some whispers of a mysterious agent, only known as Reaper, who would ghost through cities leaving only death in his wake. He was untrackable, unkillable, and worked for no-one but himself. You had brushed it off as survivor trauma, over-speculation, and assumed this killer was just either one or multiple really good Talon agents. As you slowly rise to your feet, eyes trained on the black eye-holes of what must be Reaper’s mask, you decide that if you live, you’re going to start taking that kind of information seriously from now on. All of it.

 

You raise your gun again, and Reaper gives you a chuckle that sounds like a bottomless echo. He unfolds his arms, and pauses when you fire three more bullets into him. He barely reacts. You remember you haven’t reloaded your gun in a while, and the cartridge seems empty. Perhaps old age _is_ getting to your memory. At least you won’t have to worry about it for much longer, since Death seems to have decided to blow you to smithereens in the night.

 

“Always were too defensive,” the shadow says, and his voice is slow and unnerving. Your nose crinkles in mild annoyance at the implication that being defensive is unwarranted in this situation, _where you are being threatened with twin fucking shotguns_. You keep your hand steady, gun pointed at him still. “I didn’t think someone so peaceful while sleeping could be so violent.”

 

“I wasn’t asleep, you…” You’re at a loss for insults, really, so you trail off and start again. “I wasn’t asleep, and if violence is you want, _Reaper_ , I’m sure I’ve got plenty of ways to test how unkillable you really are.” Better.

 

“So you know the name they’ve given me.” Another grating chuckle sets your nerves on edge, partly from the mocking tone and partly cause it’s damn scary. “I’m sure I’d absolutely love to test your methods, 76.”

 

You let out a dismissive huff, but your heartbeat is pounding in your ears and making it extremely difficult to formulate any kind of response, biting or not. “Why are you here to kill me anyway?” you manage, maybe a little high pitched. “I don’t recall doing anything to earn midnight assassinations from you.”

 

Reaper cocks his head with interest. “I’m not here to kill you,” and you scoff, looking at your destroyed couch. The man ignores you, gesturing to himself grandly with his weapons. “You don’t recognize me?”

 

You raise an eyebrow. “Beyond an assassin that until about a minute ago I thought was fictional? Not exactly.” You huff again; pain and stress is making your breath come up short.

Reaper tuts almost sadly. “Oh, and here I thought old age wasn’t interfering with your memories. Although, I suppose I’m not exactly helping much.” He holsters one gun, but keeps the other on you, moving it as he talks. “It’s such a shame you don’t just remember, 76. Or would it helped if I called you John?”

 

Acid burns in your throat at the mention of your birth name; one you had dropped due to uncomfortable connections with family members and trauma you don’t wish to recall. Nobody alive knew that was once your name. You had scrubbed it out of your history the moment you were 16 and it was legal. Not even the highest ranking officials at Overwatch had known. Only someone you would have told directly, possibly when it was 4 a.m. and you had woken drunk and shaking from nightmares and recounted your childhood in a rambled mess over a whole box of cigarettes and maybe you cried for the first time you could remember. An unlikely scenario, one that didn’t happen with someone who definitely did not understand and comfort you in a manner so gentle and _unlike_ him but _it still felt right and everything did with him and –_

 

You do not remember that. You _don’t_.

 

You haven’t said anything in nearly a minute. Reaper is done with your silence, stepping forward with unnatural grace to grab your jaw with one metal-taloned hand. Your head is swimming far too much to react sensibly so you don’t, hoping that you can collect your wits enough to fight him off before he kills you. He tightens his grip, index claw digging painfully into your cheek, and lifts you off the ground. The sudden lack of floor beneath your feet drags you back from your own daze, and you grab onto his arm with both hands to aim a kick straight into his abdomen. He doesn’t drop you.

 

“Why,” he snarls, “would a kick be any worse than a bullet? Are you that dense now, Morrison?”

 

Your neck feels dangerously strained from your own body weight. “You know all these names of mine, you fuck-” Reaper tightens his grip again and you wince. “-it doesn’t mean anything to me.”

 

Reaper cocks his head. “Oh, but I _know_ it does. I know nobody knows your first name. Except,” and you brace yourself for something you don’t want to hear because it’s not _possible_ , “for me.”

 

This time you’re pretty sure your whole stomach is in your throat, because people you watched sabotage themselves just to kill you don’t magically come back to life. Out of near instinct you release your grip with one hand and manage to punch Reaper square in the face. This, apparently, shocks him enough into letting you go. As you land, you decide to punch him in the face a second time, solidly enough that he actually goes flying backwards, held gun scattering across the floor. You can feel blood dripping down your face, your bullet wound is throbbing, and you are so overwhelmed with emotions you haven’t felt in years that you’re worried you might faint. You catch yourself, and look at Reaper, who is still lying on the ground, apparently stunned enough to not move. You stomp over and firmly place one foot squarely on his chest. His bullet wounds are gone. You also can’t feel any sign of life under your foot.

 

“Gabriel Reyes,” you growl, name tasting ashy in your mouth, “Is dead. I watched him die. I watched the whole facility go up in the flames that he caused and I watched him burn down with it.” Your eyes are stinging but you’re a grown man, and you are not going to dissolve into sobbing over some words a creepy assassin dug up to hurt you, least of all when your face is bare and he can see. “Whatever kind of thing you think you’re doing here, you are _not_ him. He is dead.”

 

Reaper doesn’t move. You briefly wonder if his weakness is getting punched in the face, before he raises one hand slowly. It hovers above his mask as if he’s debating with himself whether to take it off or not.

 

Instead, he speaks, tone subdued and less taunting than before. “It was July and you had been having nightmares for a straight week but you wouldn’t tell me what about.” You tense. “We got drunk. You said it would help and you had a way of wording your ideas to sound _so_ clever. You were asleep for thirty minutes before you woke up screaming. Then you -”

 

You kick him in the face with your full force, stopping what he was about to say, because you didn’t want him to. This makes you slip and you wobble to your right. You manage to land on your feet still, about a foot away. Straddling the line between a panic attack and dissociation you haven’t endured in years, you lean back against the barn wall and slide down onto the dusty floor next to Reaper. You know, the assassin, the terrorist, the guy who fired a shotgun at your face not ten minutes ago. Reyes. At least, you think to yourself with a tinge of hysterics, that explains the whole not dying from being shot. You can’t kill what’s already dead.

 

You hear a click as he takes off the mask, but you don’t look over. You don’t want to see what Reyes has become under there. You don’t want to think about the stories of the people he’d killed, about the survivor who said Reaper had crushed a man’s throat right in front of him. You don’t want to know how he survived certain death, why he’s come for you now. You definitely do not want to be here at all, actually. You wish that empty grave in Arlington really had you in it.

 

“I knew I’d miss.” Reaper says, and his voice sounds so much more familiar now without the mask on, you’re surprised you don’t actually cry. “I needed to make sure you were real, because I was just as shocked as you are now.”

 

You’d roll your eyes if you weren’t essentially paralyzed with stress. “You need to deal with your shock better,” you croak, words coming out bizarrely calm. “At least I only shot back in defence.” You remember the wound on your arm and it begins to hurt quite a bit. “You didn’t entirely miss, anyway.”

 

“Hm.” Out of the corner of your eye, you see him sit up and you turn your head away as subtly as you can. “I suppose I’ve forgotten much else than shooting at things.”

 

You huff out of your nose as your only response. To your right, Reaper has mimicked your position leaning against the wall, closer than you’re exactly comfortable with. You don’t want to talk with him, at all. Not even because of the assassination thing, but because you don’t want to see his face – if it’s still there - or hear him say something that reminds you of how things used to be. You stare at the wall in silence, focusing on the pain in your shoulder and cheek instead.

 

“Jack,” he says, and your heart jumps despite yourself. “My… humble apologies for shooting at you.”

 

You grit your teeth together. “Apologies? Are you going to apologize for destroying a whole Overwatch base, along with yourself, just to- to kill me?” There is anger bubbling up in your chest where the panic was before and you want to punch his stupid face again, but that means looking at him. You dig your nails into the ground instead, feeling the grit gather under your nails. “You can’t just waltz or- or apparate in here, shoot at me, threaten and torment me, and expect me to want to sit here and catch up on old times as if the last time I saw you wasn’t burning in a fucking explosion because you just hated me _that much_.” You think there’s blood in your mouth. “Why didn’t you just fucking shoot me in the god damn head anyway, cause that’d be a right load better than having to sit next to some fucked up- some living ghost corpse.” Your voice is wavering the whole time but you can’t bring yourself to care anymore. Your head swims.

 

Your vision is blurry, and before you can really react, Reaper is sitting on the side you’re facing. Against your will, you catch sight of his face for the first time. Even in the dark, you can see every detail; his face worse for wear, cheeks hollow and skin more lined than before, but it _is_ Reyes. His eyes are shallow and unnatural, but when you meet them they have the same hardened look of resilience, the same determination and… concern. You feel like a fluttery schoolgirl with a crush for a moment before you close your eyes and put your head between your knees. Reaper – or Reyes, you don’t know what to call him now – sighs beside you.

 

“Jack,” he says again, and this time it’s softer and more desperate. Your mind trails back without meaning to. Nights off duty where you could look at his face, flushed beneath you, and he’d whisper your name in the same way and make you do whatever he wanted. This makes you go bright red in the face. You hadn’t thought about those things in a long time, and now is inappropriate.

 

“’m sorry,” he mumbles, and you know it’s for more than just shooting at you this time. You don’t think you’ll forgive him for that one yet, though. “I panicked in my own way. I fucked up.”

 

Your laugh comes out meaner than intended and you pause before you say anything. “You did,” you say, words still wobbly. “You did and you’re a bastard for it and I probably should hate you more.”

 

Reyes snorts softly. “So you admit you don’t hate me as much as you could?”

 

You manage to drag your head up from your knees, but things still feel like treacle. You’re dimly aware under all the other pain that you need to crack your knuckles again. You look at him with a face somewhere between anger and amusement. He’s got a small smile on, and you notice his lips are dry, and you think about kissing him. Your anger fades almost immediately, leaving you tired. “I suppose I do.”

 

“That’ll do,” he nods, and moves his eyes to the cut on your cheek. “I guess I should be sorry about that too. I’ve always had temper trouble.” He meets your eyes again. “You know that though.” After the intimidating, mocking persona you had met earlier, Reyes now seems starkly soft. You’d forget the whole weird assassin thing if he didn’t still have the hood and claws.

 

You wipe the blood from your cheek and look at it, then wipe it on your knee. “Not the worst I’ve had, even from your hands.” Reyes winks despite it all. You look at him, offended, then look away embarrassed as you remember scars besides the ones on your face. “Um.”

 

“Look, Jack,” he says, and raises a hand as if to put it on yours before hesitating and lowering it. “I came here because I need you to know that I’m just doing the same thing you are. I… assumed we could perhaps make the job easier between us. I might be a bit more unforgiving, but I do what needs to be done.”

 

Your head spins with the sudden slew of words and change of emotion, and your brow furrows. “What the hell are we doing the same, exactly? I was hunting _your_ treacherous ass people down, but you seem to be hunting down just about anyone. Why would I want to be a part of that?”

 

“I…” He seems almost as troubled as you. “Was going to find the ex-Overwatch agents. All of them.” His face turns dark as he looks away, and you realize what he means. “Remove any lingering trace of corruption. Revenge for what they did to… us.”

 

“You… don’t do that,” you finish, lamely. You raise your voice, then, furious again. “They’re not all damn responsible and it’s not your choice. If you wanted to do that, you’d have… You’re the reason we’re both here like this, you selfish fuck. You’d have to remove yourself.” You think that’s probably a bit cruel, but you’re mad now and the words come far too easily.

 

Reyes looks at you, eyes cold. “If I could die, don’t you think I would’ve killed myself by now?”

 

Your throat feels numb. You hadn’t… You didn’t think that… Out of habit you put your hand on his knee, and it shocks you both. You withdraw it like you’ve been scalded. He reaches out and grabs your wrist, and the talons bite into your flesh but you don’t care. He’s much closer to you than you realized before.

 

“Gabriel,” you say, and you haven’t called him that in a long time, even before the explosion. His grip tightens on your wrist and it hurts, but you ignore it.

 

He kisses you, hard on the mouth, and you kiss him back because you missed him so much despite yourself and your bitterness and hatred and venom melt away in moments. You close your eyes and ignore the fact you both have tears on your face. It lasts all too before he stops and pulls away, just slightly.

 

You open your eyes to fading mist, and he is gone.

 

You do not cry. You don’t.

 

*

 

It’s 2 o’clock in the afternoon, and you’re sitting incognito outside a café in New York, where you’ve located some shady activity that smells of Blackwatch.  It’s been a month since Reaper showed up at your hideout. You found your mask after reconnaissance the next day, sitting on the ruined couch, innocent as can be. Any thoughts or emotions you possibly have had were blocked out firmly. You mentally noted that Reaper was an ex-Blackwatch operative and needed removal like the rest, with higher priority given his deadly methods. In your mind, it was a normal night, nothing happened, and you went on with your life.

 

Scanning the newspaper you read nothing of interest, and you don’t pick up anything about masked bringers of death, either. You weren’t looking, of course, and you don’t react at all. People bustle past, traffic passes, and the world moves despite you. You’re so lost in thought that you barely notice when the chair across from you is pulled back, but you do notice when it’s filled with a form large enough to block the sun. You look up to confront the invader, and your eyes widen in surprise and horror.

 

“Don’t worry, Commander,” Reinhardt bellows, smile as broad as ever. “I promise that I will go easy on you for your little trick. I cannot promise the others will!” He chuckles, and you grimace at mention of ‘the others’. “Now, you will be coming back with me! I believe the world is in need of heroes once again, and who better to join us than the heroic Soldier 76 himself?”

 

You nod dumbly, rise to your feet as Reinhardt does, and proceed to follow him to wherever he intends to bring you. If he had come to you a month ago, you would have adamantly refused and fought him tooth and nail, but something inside you tells you this is the best way to find - to take down Reaper.

 

Because that is exactly what you intend to do.

 


End file.
